


Belong to the Stars

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, First Meeting, Gen, enemies to worse enemies i guess?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-09-25 03:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9800654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: The child is thrown into the cell and the door thrown shut behind it. Gamora blinks down at it, pulling her thin legs closer to herself protectively.The newest prisoner -- Gamora now sees she resembles a girl -- takes in her new containment chamber, her eyes flicking across the bars, the walls, and then across Gamora’s face. Her skin is a strange metallic blue, already bearing the scars of service, and her eyes are iris-less black. She’s a Luphomoid, Gamora notes. Must be the last of her kind.





	1. Some Sort of Name

The child is thrown into the cell and the door thrown shut behind it. Gamora blinks down at it, pulling her thin legs closer to herself protectively.

The newest prisoner -- Gamora now sees she resembles a girl -- takes in her new containment chamber, her eyes flicking across the bars, the walls, and then across Gamora’s face. Her skin is a strange metallic blue, already bearing the scars of service, and her eyes are iris-less black. _She’s a Luphomoid_ , Gamora notes. _Must be the last of her kind._

The girl slowly sits upright, scooting herself backward into the barred door. She folds her arms across her chest.

“Hello, Luphomoid,” Gamora says. “Do you have a name?”

The girl raises her chin to meet Gamora’s gaze sharply, jerking herself to her feet like a marionette whose string has been pulled. “Greetings, Zehoberei. No.”

Gamora nods slowly. “You’ve had your first operation.”

The Luphomoid lightly touches the grey-blue rectangle atop her head. “Yes.”

“There will be more.”

For the first time, emotion darts across the girl’s cold face. Rather than pain, it’s anger. “Very well.” Her voice remains steely.

“Where did you come from?” _How old are you?_ she wants to ask instead. _You are so young._

“I was rescued. My planet was a hellhole going down in flames. I am lucky to be here.”

Gamora blinks. “You were stolen.”

The girl is silent.

Gamora tries a different approach to find out more about this strange child. “My name is Gamora.”

The blue girl blinks “A Zehoberei name.”

“I kept it.”

“Why?” rather than being barbed, Nebula’s voice is simply curious.

Gamora unfolds her legs, steps of her stone slab, and faces off against her. “If you wish to serve Thanos, you don’t question your superiors.”

The girl’s black gaze is steady. “Is that what you are, then?”

Gamora inclines her head. “Yes.”

The Luphomoid tries to hit her, but Gamora grasps her wrist and wrenches it sideways, bending the girl over and forcing her back against the bars. She crashes with a soft grunt, and Gamora realizes that she’s light, much lighter than a Luphomoid should be, and thinner too.

She steps back. “How long have you been aboard the Dark Aster?”

Silence.

“Have they fed you?”

The girl just scowls.

Gamora reaches into her back pocket and pulls out the crusted end of a nourishment bar. “Here.”

The Luphomoid eyes it like it’s some sort of lower life form. Her eyes flick up to Gamora’s. Gamora stares back.

Finally, her hand darts out and takes it, and she tears into it like an animal, finishing it in two bites. She swallows scratchily and starts to glare at Gamora again. “Thank you,” she spits with as much energy as she can muster.

“Don’t expect it again.” 

There’s an intense, detached pause as both girls regard each other, Nebula looking at Gamora with a barely hidden scowl. “You need to have some sort of name for me to call you,” Gamora notes expressionlessly, after a time.

The girl's scowl deepens into a grimace. “Nebula.”

“Nebula,” Gamora repeats back. _Nebula. Where a star is forged._ “Well-met, sister.”

It’s not well-met; not by a few parsecs at least. But she doesn’t know what else to say.

When Nebula makes no response to the formal greeting, Gamora retreats to her stone slab to watch her, drawing her knees back up to her chest. Nebula, after a few moments, sits down the same way she was when she was first thrown into the cell, her back against the bars behind her and her arms folded in a removed gesture. Just when Gamora thinks she won't speak again, she whispers “well-met” back, so near-silent that Gamora is almost not able to hear it at all.


	2. Young Slave

The metal clangs harshly across Nebula’s ears and she crumples forward, curling herself into the corner and anticipating another blow, but the footsteps merely die away in the corridor behind her, echoing flatly and then not at all. Nebula pushes herself to her forearms, taking in the icy bars behind her. She turns her head, registering the cell and then another girl, perched up on a stone slab about two cubits from the cold stone floor. Her skin is green, looking bluish in the sick light from the interior hallways of the Dark Aster, and her face is not a friendly one. _A Zehoberei_. Nebula pulls back into a sitting position and crosses her arms across her chest, still reeling.

The Zehoberei speaks. “Hello, Luphomoid. Do you have a name?”

 _Not one I want to tell you_. She measures her words, unsure if the green girl is friend or foe. “Greetings, Zehoberei. No.”

The Zehoberei nods. “You’ve had your first operation.”

Nebula’s hand, almost of its own accord, reaches up and fingers the metal rectangle atop her head. _Language implant_ , she was told. _It will allow you to understand and speak to any creature in the universe._ “Yes,” she replies shortly.

“There will be more,” the Zehoberei warns.

This time, Nebula is unable to keep the anger off her face. She’s been cut open and her own brain violated, slit open and stuffed with artificial metal learning, changing her from Nebula the young girl into Nebula the young slave. She collects her flying thoughts before allowing herself to speak again, forcing her tone flat with monumental effort. “Very well.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I was rescued. My planet was a hellhole going down in flames. I am lucky to be here.” She says that because she thinks that that’s what the Zehoberei will want to hear, and not at all because it’s true. It’s possible she wouldn’t rather be burning to ashes along with her family. But, judging by the corridors of the Dark Aster that she’s seen, she’s already dead.

“You were stolen.” It’s a neutral sentence, but it surprises Nebula -- perhaps the green girl is not just a puppet. She doesn’t reply.

“My name is Gamora.”

“A Zehoberei name,” Nebula observes. It’s not what she expected, and the presence of a name, a planet-specific one at that, makes her -- makes _Gamora_ \-- uncomfortably close to a person.

“I kept it.”

“Why?” _If you are not pleading to escape, if you seem content to be here, why do you want to keep any piece of who you were?_

“If you wish to serve Thanos, you don’t question your superiors,” Gamora snaps, standing in a sharp, fluid movement and stepping up close to Nebula, staring her down. All semblance of kindness is gone.

Unsurprised, Nebula gazes calmly back up. “Is that what you are, then?”

Gamora tilts her chin up in a gesture of dominance. “Yes.”

Nebula takes her chance, lashing out at the girl, but Gamora is too quick, wrapping her hand around Nebula’s wrist and jerking it sharply -- painfully -- around. Nebula bends forward to prevent it from being broken and Gamora shoves her brutally back against the bars. All the air punches out of Nebula’s lungs and she bites back a moan.

Gamora steps back. “How long have you been aboard the Dark Aster?” her voice is suddenly softer again.

Nebula refuses to answer.

“Have they fed you?” Gamora asks.

Nebula keeps her silence, using a lack of words as power. Her mouth curls downward and her gaze arrows inward to the hollow in her stomach.

Gamora steps back a half-pace and reaches into her pocket. Nebula stiffens, half-expecting her to draw a weapon, but Gamora just pulls out the crusted end of something disgusting-looking and brown. From the way she holds it out, Nebula assumes it’s supposed to be food. And suddenly, she _wants_ it. She forces herself to meet Gamora’s eyes. Gamora’s gaze is expressionless.

Almost against her will, her hand darts out and snatches it, and she shoves it into her mouth, finishing it faster than anything she’s ever ingested in her life. It scratches her throat on its way down.

“Thank you,” she spits, hating Gamora with every fiber for making her weak.

“Don’t expect it again.”

Silence falls between the girls as Nebula watches Gamora calculating something behind her unreadable eyes. “You need to have some sort of name for me to call you,” she finally says.

“Nebula.”

“Nebula.” Gamora tastes the word with her tongue and Nebula wants to grimace. “Well-met, sister.”

 _Sister?_ Nebula narrows her eyes.

Gamora steps back to her stone slab and hops up onto it, pulling her knees up to her chest. Nebula drops to the ground again, folding her arms across her chest and pressing her back into the farthest corner from Gamora. The “well-met” lingers on the air between them, and Nebula tastes the remains of the strange food bar in the back of her throat. “Well-met,” she finally replies, her pride not letting it above a whisper.

Gamora’s head moves slightly, the only indication she heard. Nebula closes her eyes, leans her head back against black stone, and sleeps.


	3. Ronan

She is jerked awake the next day by a hand on the bars, shaking them back and forth three times and then retreating. A click sounds. Gamora is on her feet in an instant, her green hands clenched in fists and her eyes sharp. She steps to the door and, to Nebula’s shock, throws it open -- the click must have been the undoing of a lock.

The figure who unlocked them is gone already, and in a three-mile-long warship, it could have been anyone.  _ That’s a strategy they’re using _ , Nebula deduces, though she doesn’t know what purpose it might serve.  _ Nothing here happens by accident. _

“Come on,” comes Gamora’s harsh voice, so authoritative for someone so young. She grasps Nebula by the elbow and hauls her out of the containment room, bodily dragging her five full steps down the hallway before Nebula, kicking and squirming, breaks free. “Where are we going?”

“To see Ronan. You have to come.  _ Now _ .”

“What?”

Gamora’s eyes are flat, eerily so. “Fine. Stay, then.”

She turns and starts to walk down the hallway, her stride purposeful. Nebula turns around and sees only empty hallway quickly lost in shadow; nobody coming after her. An uneasy feeling crawls its way up her back, and she turns back to Gamora. To her surprise, the Zehoberi is already almost lost in gloom.  _ But she’s not that far away… _ Realising that the gigantic spaceship must be messing with her mind, she starts to sprint after Gamora, skidding to a stop next to her before two immense, ornately-wrought black doors.

“What now?”

Gamora jerks her chin towards the doors, which slowly start to grind open. “Ronan will see us.”

Nebula waits with baited breath. Slowly, a cold, dark room made of the same black stone as the outside of the ship is revealed to her, inch by inch, between the two massive doors. Faint light filters sickly in from somewhere above her, illuminating without revealing. The doors halt, and Gamora steps inside.

Nebula follows her and takes in what looks like a throne room, with a huge chair at one end. Figures in cloaks sit on simpler stone chairs across from each other, strange, hypnotic black-red-and-white balls in their hands that seem to be made of gas.  _ No _ , Nebula realises. The strange balls are not touching their hands at all, but are levitating above them, growing and shrinking like they’re… breathing.  _ Piloting the ship? _ The sight unnerves her, and Nebula turns her gaze to the center of the room, where, facing away from them, is the statue of a man.

“Ronan,” says Gamora, immediately kneeling in a fluid, almost dance-like motion. Seeing no Ronan, Nebula stays on her feet. Then the statue turns, and Nebula realises in a heartbeat that it was actually a person, standing like a predator, unnaturally still.

As he turns, Nebula jerks backward at the sight of the man who made her the last one of her species, orchestrating the killings of her parents, her cousins, her aunts and her uncles and everyone that she ever knew. Fear paints itself in a thousand ways across her face, but still she does not bow to him.

“Stand, Gamora,” comes his rocky, deep voice, grinding and breaking the eerie silence of the space. “Thanos wishes to meet your sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometime soon, there'll be a chapter from Ronan's perspective. I wonder what he thinks of his newest trainee.


	4. Thanos

_Thanos._ Nebula looks to Gamora and sees fear brush its light wings across the latter’s green face. Ronan, not noticing, turns to face the blank wall and lifts his arm slowly, pointing to it with a solitary blue finger.

There’s a small crackle. Nebula watches with wide eyes as a giant purple face appears, projected clear across the dark marble surface. It has a square chin, a golden crown -- or helmet, perhaps -- and glittering, demonic eyes. It grins, stretching its face into a mockery of a smile.

Gamora kneels once again and Nebula follows, ducking her chin all the way to her collarbone. She does not meet the purple creature’s eyes. She finds she can’t.

“What is the blue child’s name?” Thanos asks, his voice loud and echoey in the room. _That’s no projection. Ronan can somehow communicate with him._ It’s unlike any technology Nebula has ever seen, and it’s far more advanced than anything they had on Luphomos. She’s scared of this spaceship’s ability, but that’s nothing compared to her immediate terror of the madness Thanos’s eyes. _He’s crazy._

And suddenly, she’s angry. She’s angry that one man can murder a whole planet and can face no repercussions. She’s angry that Thanos can think himself a god and sit on a throne, yet still needs children -- stolen, orphaned children -- to do his dirty work.

She suppresses her trembling. Already, she knows she cannot be weak.

“She is called Nebula,” says Ronan in his dark, rocky voice. “She will serve you.”

“She and Gamora have met, then?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Gamora, stand,” Thanos orders. Gamora leaps to her feet in a single, fluid motion. “You will ensure Nebula survives,” he tells her.

 _Protection?_ Nebula looks toward Gamora, still kneeling, but Gamora doesn’t spare her even a glance. “Yes, my lord,” Gamora says, bowing.

“Nebula, stand,” Thanos orders.

Nebula does, less gracefully than Gamora had. The fact is not lost on Thanos, and she glares.

“You will be raised alongside Gamora, and you will fight for me,” he says.

“Why should I fight for you when you have ordered the destruction of everything I love?” she spits. For a moment, she doesn’t care if she lives or dies.

Thanos is taken-aback. Nebula clenches her small fists.

“Gamora,” he says. “Teach her.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Ronan. Test them.”

“How, my lord?”

“You are a warrior, boy. Must you need my advice on everything?” Thanos asks, and his voice is scathing.

Ronan bows with a murmured, “No, my lord.”

Nebula finds herself the only one standing.

“I hope you will be Gamora’s equal,” Thanos says to her, and she forces her eyes up to his. She can’t hold them, but it doesn’t matter, as Thanos shifts his piercing gaze to Ronan. “I will arrive shortly. Prepare the Aster.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Thanos’s face disappears from the wall, and Nebula senses rather than sees Gamora relaxing slightly.

“Set a course for Dervani,” Ronan orders one of the cloaked figures. The ball in its hands widens and shrinks, but any corresponding movement of the ship is imperceptible from within it.

He turns to the two girls. “You will be challenged. May the best fighter win.”

Gamora stands and bows her head. “Yes, Ronan.”

“Go.”

Gamora takes Nebula by the arm, not gently but not roughly either. “We’re dismissed,” she tells her sharply, and leads her out of the room.  


“What was that?” Nebula asks her, breathless, once they’re out in the hallway.

“It was a stroke of luck for you,” Gamora retorts. “Never speak angrily to Thanos again.”

Her hand drifts towards her side, and Nebula wonders for a moment what wounds might lurk under her leather outfit. A rush of compassion fills her.

“I won’t,” she says. “Are you hurt?”

Gamora turns to her, clearly surprised. “Hurt? Why would it matter?” she asks, as if the question were ridiculous.

“I -- I just meant-”

“We’ll arrive at Dervani soon, Nebula. We must get changed into our space suits. The gravity there is abnormally strong.”

“Very well,” Nebula replies. She gives Gamora a curious look. “What happens if you lose?” she asks slowly.

“ _I_ won’t find out,” Gamora tells her imperiously. She grasps Nebula’s wrist and wrenches her forward, back towards their shared cell. “We must _go_.”

Nebula keeps up after her, narrowing her eyes. _Why do you want to win so much? What happens to you if you lose?_

Well, one thing’s for sure. Gamora sees her as competition, so that’s what she’ll be.

Nebula breaks Gamora’s hold and sprints the rest of the way back to the cell, but Gamora still beats her by a full five seconds.


End file.
